GOLD CAP? I’D RATHER HAVE THE WORLD CUP
Centurion Wayne reflects on landmark
WAYNE ROONEY has the perfect retreat should he ever doubt his own achievements. It is a place in his home: a personal minimuseum, spread over two floors.
By any standard his career has been fruitful and today he will receive a new centrepiece for his exhibition: a Golden Cap set in a glass case to mark his 100 appearances for England.
At 29, he is the youngest footballer to reach the landmark.
‘I’ll put it in there, with the other things I’ve collected over the years,’ said Rooney. ‘The first things you see when you go in are my Premier League medals.
‘It’s something I’m very proud of. They’re on a mannequin in a Manchester United shirt. There’s a glass cabineti net underneath with all my England caps in.’
Here is a rare glimpse into Wayne’s World.
‘It’s probably about the size of this room, split between upstairs and downstairs,’ he adds, glancing around a large conference room m inside St George’s Park, k, where he is being mined ned for memories before becomecoming England’s ninth centurion.
And there is still time for him to surpass the 125 caps of Peter Shilton and the 49 goals of Sir Bobby Charlton, who will make today’s presentation.
He stands just six goals behind Charlton and there is no sign of him stopping. Rooney wants to play at a fourth World Cup, in Russia in 2018, and yet he might have quit football at the age of 14, had it not been for Everton coach Colin Harvey.
‘ I stopped enjoying i t,’ said Rooney. ‘It was really down to Colin Harvey that I carried on.
‘He sat me down and made me fall back in love with it.
‘He just said he hadn’t seen any player with the talent I had and that I’d be making a mistake.
‘I thought, “he used to be Everton manager, so he knows the game”. Thankfully I listened. That’s when I stopped going to boxing and focused solely on football. It was the right decision.’
Three years l ater came an England debut, starting the second half in a side captained by Danny Mills after Sven Goran Eriksson made 11 half-time substitutions in a friendly against Australia.
Rooney was up front with Everton pal Francis Jeffers, cheered on by friends and family of the Croxteth pair who put on a special coach to Upton Park.
Jeffers scored and never played for England again. Rooney knows hishis life ccould have turned out very differently. He might havhave ended up in landscscaping or building like hhis mates.
As it is, he will lead out England at Wembbley with sons Kai and Klay, before today’s Euro 2016 qualifier aagainst Slovenia. ‘I hope this isn’t my laslast tournament,’ Rooney saidsaid. ‘It’s difficult when you’re coming up to 30 to start planning the next f our years.
‘You have to be realistic. There’s a chance I might not go to the next World Cup but it’s something I’d love to do. I never want to cut my career short by deciding not to play for England.’
Tournaments have not been kind to Rooney. His fondest England memories are from Euro 2004, even though it ended prematurely with a broken metatarsal. His favourite goals are a decade in the past. It is indicative of the era.
Steven Gerrard reached back to the 5-1 win in Germany, his sixth cap. Frank Lampard, like Rooney, cherished Euro 2004. For those representing England over the past 10 years, it has been about regrets and missed opportunities.
Amid untimely injuries, red cards and red mists, one moment stands out: his dismissal against Portugal in the 2006 World Cup quarter-final. ‘That’s the low,’ said Rooney. ‘I believe to this day if I’d stayed on we would’ve won the game.
‘I beat myself up about it straight away. I was in the dressing room watching the rest of the game. It was difficult, knowing no matter what happened my tournament was over.
‘We didn’t go through and that made it worse. You start thinking, “Is it my fault?” We’ve been stuck, we can’t get past the quarter-finals and that was a great opportunity, like Euro 2004 was.
‘Not going through, and knowing my red card might have affected that, was difficult to take. I didn’t show it too much. I tend to keep things like that inside.’
The Manchester United narrative took over. Rooney’s red card was for stamping on Ricardo Carvalho, but a wink from Cristiano Ronaldo came to signify a Portuguese plot to wind up England’s best player until he blew.
‘I spoke to him (Ronaldo) straight after the game,’ said Rooney, ‘ because I knew which way the Press would go in terms of us falling out. We had to make sure that didn’t happen for Manchester United’s sake.
‘There was never an issue. I understood why he’d done it. He was trying to win for Portugal and to be honest I’d probably do the same for England. I remember saying to the referee that he was diving, trying to get him a yellow card. It happens in football.’
Roy Hodgson insists the best is still to come for his captain of the next generation — and Rooney agrees things are moving in the right direction, but 99 England caps breed caution. There are no guarantees.
Given the choice, he would have preferred a World Cup medal to a ‘Golden Cap’. Wouldn’t they all? Today, he can savour his experiences and his goals and be thankful he didn’t pack it all in 15 years ago.
‘I’m blessed with the career I’ve been able to have,’ said Rooney. ‘There have been tough times on and off the field, but I’ve never thought this isn’t what I want to be doing. I’ve always believed this is the perfect thing for me.’